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Copain

When I was in high school I took French until I graduated. The university I went to, much to my disappointment, didn't offer a French course, so I tried carrying on my own learning by enrolling in night classes and getting audio books. It's not easy to learn a language when you don't have someone to practice with outside of class, and so eventually my enthusiasm dwindled, and my vocabulary is now pretty poor.

But there is one word that has stuck with me since my French lessons in high school, and that is Copain. It means good friend, often used to refer to a boyfriend (or if you're talking about a girl, you say copine), but it seems to be quite interchangeable with Ami, which also means friend. The root of the word is Pain, which means bread in French, so the word Copain describes someone you would break bread with.

It's quite fitting then that today I baked my first two flat breads and shared them with Husband, Brother and Awesome Flatmate.

I am generally useless at baking bread No matter what I do, it always ends up hard like a rock or too dense to enjoy.

But this bread is a revolution for me.

I used Annabel Langbein's crusty flatbread recipe, swapping the mashed potato for mashed kumara (sweet potato) and it was delicious.

My mother in law recommended it to me after trying it out and saying how easy it was, and I had to give it a go.

Having a mixer with a dough hook has made my dough-making so much better.

The boys rate it eight out of ten. And they want me to make it again.

I'm going to keep testing it out with different toppings, and I think this will become a regular baking staple.